


Pleiades

by Rubynye



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: F/M, Multi, Nonmonogamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six times George and Winona had sex, and one they couldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pleiades

**Author's Note:**

> 'Sammy' is George Samuel Kirk. 'Morrison' is borrowed from Ms. Morrison following [](http://jedibuttercup.livejournal.com/profile)[**jedibuttercup**](http://jedibuttercup.livejournal.com/).  
> Based on these two prompts: "[ I want some Winona and George Kirk shenanigans aboard the _USS Kelvin_](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/4765.html?thread=12122269#t12122269)" from [](http://taraljc.livejournal.com/profile)[**taraljc**](http://taraljc.livejournal.com/) and "[George Kirk/Winona Kirk - Pregnancy kink](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/379.html?thread=381307#t381307)". Also references "[Blue Eyes Shine](http://rubynye.livejournal.com/400265.html)" but you don't have to have read that.
> 
> Acknowledgements: [](http://lomedet.livejournal.com/profile)[**lomedet**](http://lomedet.livejournal.com/) for alpha reading and [](http://hyel.livejournal.com/profile)[**hyel**](http://hyel.livejournal.com/) for beta reading, of which this story took more than the norm.  
> _Disclaimer:_ None of the named characters or their settings belong to me.  
> Title and subtitles from "Pleiades" by King's X

 

  
**   
_up at the stars_   
**   


Winona always remembers the moment. She's never told anyone, not even George, but she knows exactly when it was.

It was most of the way through the second time they had sex. She was riding George, clutching his shoulders, catching a little breath as she rocked down onto him. His broad hands tightened on her waist, the muscles tensing in his toned arms, and the pulse in his throat looked tender and biteable, but Winona kept her elbows locked, kept her head up and her eyes open as she drove her hips faster. She watched George curiously, the way his forehead rucked up, his mouth falling open around deepening groans, because the first time he'd kept her too distracted to see what he looked like when he came.

George bit his lip, unexpectedly opening his eyes, and Winona almost gasped. He smiled at her, moaning, "Win, Win," his eyes bright sky blue and space-black, glinting like distant stars. "Winoh--" He squeezed them shut again as he shook under her, inside her, with the force of his orgasm, but the look he'd given her wrapped around her heart, soaking in. She leaned down to kiss his parted lips and he ran his hand up her back to tangle his fingers in her hair and hold her there, kissing her breathlessly, hanging onto her until he shuddered to a stop.

When he let her up she opened her eyes to find him looking at her again, smiling at her. "Hey, beautiful," he said, but he made it sound like a synonym for her particular name, and his eyes were clear and deep enough to fall into.

Winona knows that's the moment she decided she was keeping George Kirk.

 

  
**   
_a hundred million worlds_   
**   


Winona sits up in George's bed, leaning on his bedroom window and watching the street bustling with cadets and personnel three stories below, sated and glowing and feeling like she's getting away with something. The afternoon is just when they're both free, between the class George teaches downHill and her overnight shift at the Observatory upHill, but it still feels decadent to watch everyone busily scurrying while she sits here in the warm late sunshine with George curled around her, his arm slung across her lap.

"See anything good?" George head-butts her hip like a needy cat.

She obligingly scritches fingertips through his hair. "Just black and red in infinite combinations," she says, "although..." A thick sapphire tuft catches her eye. "There's a pretty boy crossing the street, wiry, long limbs, blue hair and a swingy loose walk."

"Only if that's his natural color," George mumbles. "Carpet and drapes and all that."

Winona snickers, summoning up the regs on acceptable personal grooming and display. "Starfleet Regulation one-point- oh, wow." A vibrant young woman appears, wavy black hair bouncing around her heart-shaped face. "Sit up, you'll like this one." George groans but pushes himself upright as Winona points, their shoulders brushing. "The bouncy brunette with the smile, see her?" He nods, humming appreciatively as the girl strides through the crowd, hips swinging, breasts sweetly jiggling, smiling at everything around her.

It's only after she turns the corner and vanishes that George lets out a low whistle. "Okay, she's gorgeous," he says, tucking his arm around Winona's waist. "You always point out the hottest women, so why is your taste in men so weird?"

She elbows him lightly. "Does that include you?"

"Maybe," George murmurs into her hair, kissing the top of her head. "You know, I was thinking." His voice slides low, slipping under her skin like a caress as she leans against him. "You're beautiful, brilliant, and star-crazy, we're both Human, _and_ we have the same taste in women. Maybe I need to marry you."

Lately they've been discussing their futures in greater and greater detail; expecting another such conversation, Winona laughs and presses her cheek to his chest. "Are you serious?"

"Actually." George's voice firms up as he shifts away. Winona's heart does a little flip, and she turns to watch him lean across his bed and pull something from beneath it. It's a little square blue box, Science blue. "I know it's against regs for you to wear this on duty, but..." Throat bobbing as he swallows hard, George looks down, takes her hand and places the box on her palm. "Do you want me to kneel?"

It takes Winona a moment to unstick her dry mouth. "No, no, stay right here." She folds one hand around the box, the other tight around George's.

With the only hand free, he opens the box, and in the afternoon sunshine the slender circle of gold gleams, the diamond sparkles with fire. "Um," he starts, and clears his throat. Sitting naked on his bed in the afternoon, George asks, "Winona, will you marry me?"

Sitting naked beside him, Winona nods, swallows hard, and calmly says, "Yes, George, I will." Then it all hits her, the image of the two of them disheveled and sweaty for this, everything she's just agreed to, and she starts to giggle helplessly. George grips her hand as he starts laughing too, all nerves and triumph and happiness, and Winona kneels up and kisses him, both of them gasping giggles into it. George drops her hands to wrap his arms around her and pull her close, and Winona winds her arms around his neck, thinking of all the possibilities, the galaxy before them and George beside her for the rest of their lives.

"Wait, wait," George mutters against her mouth, reaching up to reclaim the box and take her hand.

Winona pushes herself back just a little, half on his lap as he gently slides the ring up her finger, where it fits securely. "Traditionalist," she teases, and George's grin flares brightly.

"You bet." He rocks forward, tipping her onto her back, leaning over her, and they're bathed in sunlight and shadows. "I wish that could be all you'll wear today," he murmurs, and that low voice goes right through her.

"Mmm, _that_ would be great." Winona slides her arms around George's back, tilting her hips up as she kisses her new fiance.

 

  
**   
_the laws of heaven_   
**   


George smiles bashfully to see Winona waiting up for him, his collar a little crooked and his cheeks still pink, and she grins as she hugs him. "You smell like an undergraduate dorm shower," she tells him, tilting her face up. "It's the ozone."

"Direct hit." He kisses her warmly, arms around her waist. "Do you want to hear about it?"

"The party? Or the pick-up?" Winona sets her hand over his heart. "Pike, am I right?"

George grins, blushing redder. "He says hi. And, yeah, he _was_ on the list."

"At the top." Winona's relieved to be able to smile without reservations. She trusts George's judgement, but she really _likes_ Chris Pike. If he were a little older she might've asked George to bring him home. "Yeah, I want to hear about him. You totally fucked that star-struck kid, didn't you?"

"Not technically," George answers, and Winona bursts out laughing. George gently presses her head to his shoulder, sighing contentedly into her hair like the happiest man alive, and she loves that look on him. She loves that she can let him go and he'll come right back, smiling just for her and with a hot tale to tell. "Because we didn't get to it, really. God, Winona. He's such a sweetheart. I almost wish..."

He trails off, hugging Winona more tightly. In the back of her head, there's a little spot of selfish gladness that they're leaving for the _Kelvin_ in fourteen hours, that Captain Robau's going to formally marry them twenty-eight hours after that. She really likes Chris, but she's not sure just how much of her soon-to-be-brand-new husband she'd want to share with him, just yet.

Maybe in a few years, when he's grown into himself and they've been married awhile. "I hope you didn't tell him so." George arches an eyebrow. "I'm not sure his masculinity could withstand that assessment."

His eyes twinkle as he laughs. "I think it could. He's pretty sturdy now, you know. Not at all the gangly kid you met last year."

Winona gives him that eyebrow right back. "That's why I decided he was man enough to handle Lieutenant George Kirk."

George's smile is heartstoppingly bright as he slides his hands up around her face. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" He kisses her until she's a little breathless, until she's starting to heat up.

"Smiled that Kirk smile and said hi," Winona's skin is warming, everywhere she's pressed to him, under his hands resting on her nape and between her shoulderblades. "So tell me, what did you do that required a shower afterwards? I want details."

"Yes, ma'am." George tugs her across the room, not towards the bed but the reading chair. "You have to sit down for this. He put me in his desk chair and knelt and just looked up at me with these _eyes_." He follows his narration, his hands on her thighs, softening his face in an imitation of Pike's worshipful look. "I had to make him tell me he even wanted anything, and what he wanted was to suck my brain out through my dick."

"That could go to a man's head." Winona runs her fingers through George's hair as he slides his hands up to her hips, curling his fingers into her panties. Though she rocks up to let him pull them down she asks, "Seriously, you're horny again already?"

"I have to demonstrate what it was like," George says almost primly, and Winona curls over laughing. "For accuracy. Besides... Win, I had an incredible time tonight." Now the earnestness in his eyes is all George. "I wouldn't have, I won't ever, unless you say it's okay, but I really..." She nods, and his grin tilts invitingly. "Let me thank you properly?"

"I know," Winona says, and kisses George to underscore her words. "And you're welcome. But, George, if you go down on me here I'll fall out of the chair."

"You won't if I didn't." George presses his face to her thigh, nuzzling his way up, and Winona leans back laughing and hangs on.

 

  
**   
_restrain pleiades_   
**   


Winona's pants are around George's neck, her booted feet behind his head. She's bent double between him and the wall of this tiny cramped supply closet, as he presses his hands under her thighs and thrusts hard, knocking her breath out in half-vocalized moans into his mouth. She pushes counterpoint, her hands braced against the low ceiling, slamming herself into his thrusts, feeling his suppressed groans as much as she hears him. It's a wild feedback loop, Winona fucking George fucking Winona in this dark little private space in the middle of a giant crowded thrumming starship, and all she wants to do is throw her head back as George pounds into her, dig her nails into his shoulders and scream.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for not drawing attention. Voices swell and fade on the other side of the door, their crewmates tromping up and down the corridor while George and Winona reacquaint themselves after eight endless fucking days apart with no fucking and maybe five minutes together at all, their Deck Seven quarters destroyed in the last engagement and everyone too busy keeping the ship together for anything as frivolous as sleep or sex. Captain Robau's too practical to throw a party to celebrate the end of repairs, so George and Winona are having their own party, wedged between stacks of paper goods and the door Winona's temporarily disabled.

And then there's everyone Winona can hear on the other side of the door, over their muffled moans and the wet slap of thrusts; she can't help imagining some curious, horny young Ensign or Yeoman stopping by the door, somehow sensing all the frantic sex on the other side of a thin plate of steel and polymer, pressing their ear to it, their eyes widening... She moans louder at the mental image and George huffs and shivers, laughing silently even as he lightly bites her lower lip to remind her to be quiet.

She twitches her hips in response, changing the angle and -- _shit_, she should've done that before, now every stroke bangs her clit, and George must like it too because he growls louder than she did. Not that she cares about that now, the haze thickening fast behind her eyes as she shoves one hand into his hair and her breaths go sharp edged with swallowed screams and she comes, squeezing down on George firm and solid inside her as the whole closet seems to shudder with her.

George gasps, shaking hard, then freezes. Winona's heartbeat thunders deafeningly in her ears, but he must have a good reason, she drops her other arm around his neck, tugging ineffectually at her trousers.

Then she hears Captain Robau's deep voice, coming nearer.

Winona thinks curses in every language she knows, desperately muffling her giggles with George's mouth. He snorts against her cheek, pulling one hand off her thigh to brace it on the wall, but he kisses her back, slower and quiet and pulling his tongue back into his own mouth as he listens. Winona's hips want to twitch, her pulse races with eagerness, but she holds herself still. George is trying to earn the First Officer spot vacated by Lt. Commander Nandano's upcoming transfer to the _Aquila_, and being discovered like this probably won't help.

George leans in a little more tightly, pressing Winona's breasts inside her bra, her nipples tingling against the suddenly coarse-feeling cloth, her skin sparking inside her uniform. Winona gasps helplessly, and George shudders so hard she can feel him twitch inside her.

Captain Robau's voice is getting closer, rising and falling, interspersed with short dutiful replies from someone female. Winona squeezes around George, because it feels good and he's right there crushing her to the wall and her nerves are sizzling, because she has been known to be reckless on occasion, because it makes her giggle breathlessly against his cheek when he groans low through gritted teeth.

He bounces her once, hard, and she stops on a sharp gasp. Captain Robau is going on about Astrometrics and sensor settings, and a tiny professional part of Winona almost wants to hear enough to come up with an informed opinion, but she tells it to shove off as she bites the corner of George's mouth, as he slams their lips together and starts _moving_ because George too has been known to be reckless.

Winona stops breathing entirely so she won't laugh or scream. She grabs George's hair tightly with both hands, wiggling against him as he fucks her with shorter strokes, his breath fierce puffs through his nose, her chest tightening from lack of air and everything else tightening towards orgasm, and Captain Robau droning on outside all the while.

_Finally_ the Captain's voice recedes, and Winona drags a big whooping breath into her aching lungs and just as soon shouts it into George's mouth as she comes again, pulsing wildly. George groans and pushes her up, handprints throbbing beneath her thighs, thrusting with longer strokes until he comes too, moaning and shaking.

Winona feels like she's flying, crushed up against the closet wall in George's arms. She tips her chin up and laughs, and George presses both hands to the wall and laughs with her, gasping against her throat until he mutters, "Shit, Win, shit, you're so loud."

"I'm loud, you fucker?" Winona bites his ear just this side of leaving a mark, listening to him hiss.

"Okay, we're both loud," George whispers, reaching up to push Winona's entangled feet over his head, backing up the one step he can as she braces herself against his shoulders and wiggles her legs down. "But Captain Robau just went past! What if he heard us!"

"Oh, I'm sure we could've thought of something," Winona says, breaking open a package of disposable wipes, passing a handful to George as she cleans herself up. "How about, 'it's okay, we're engaged?'"

Married, actually, but George just finishes the joke as he zips up his uniform. "'Then disengage and get out of there!'"

Winona laughs and laughs, pulling up her pants, euphoria singing down her nerves; she laughs until George steps forward to press her to the wall and kiss her one more time.

 

  
**   
_times have we been_   
**   


Winona sits on the bed, staring at the test strips in her hand. Three of them, all with the same brightly color coded result. Keeping her eyes on them as if they might change if she looks away, she flips open her communicator and pages George.

He takes his time getting there -- they were fighting this morning, he was being an ass about leave, but that really doesn't matter now. She can't move, just sits there staring at the test strips, her thoughts spinning uselessly, fragmenting into words, syllables, letters, white noise.

The door whooshes open, and George strides in, talking already. "Okay, I know you were mad about leave, and I'm sorry, but I still think--"

Winona holds up the test strips.

George looks at the test strips.

Winona looks up at George, who has actually gone pale, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. "Yeah," she says, very quietly, and stands up.

"Uh, but... holy fuck," George mutters, his face closed, and Winona starts to feel a chill like she's swallowed space itself, emptiness opening inside her.

"Yeah," she says again into the silence. "I'm pregnant."

"Your mom's going to kill me," George says, but now he looks at Winona, now the color is coming back to his cheeks. "We've already stuck her with one grandkid."

Winona shakes her head. Leaving Sammy behind half killed her, but she's a Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade, and she didn't cry. "I can't... I'll have to go back on leave." Without George this time, there's no way Robau could spare him. "At least another year if I deliver planetside." It's all unfolding, inescapable as vacuum.

"It'll set your career back five years."

"It'll be a year away from you."

As they look at each other, Winona feels a touch on her belly. It's her own hand, curving over her navel as if she can protect this new baby from reality, from herself. George slides his fingers between hers, his hand warm and broader, both of them cradling her belly.

"We're having another baby," George says, very quietly.

"Yeah," Winona says, and something bursts into the chill within her, like a new star. "Yes, we are."

"Winona Morrison Kirk," George breathes into her hair, and when she looks up he kisses her hard; something breaks inside her, she grabs his shoulders as she starts sobbing, he murmurs words between kisses. "I love you," George says, kissing tears off her cheeks. "I love you, Winona," as her mouth shakes. "We'll make this work," his lips brushing her forehead. "We'll make this work, I promise."

"George," Winona whimpers, crying in earnest, and George gathers her up, sits them both down, strokes her hair and kisses her until she can kiss back.

"We will," he says, unshakably, and she starts to fill up with hope, she believes him, she clings to George as he kisses her tears away.

George's communicator beeps, and he tears his mouth away from hers. "Oh, fuck, what," he mutters, scrambling for it, and answers it much more professionally with, "Kirk here," as he smudges a last tear off Winona's cheek.

She smiles pathetically, turning her head to kiss the heel of his hand, as the communicator crackles, "Ensign Rothstein, sir, we need you in Engineering."

"I'll be there in five." George shakes his head. "A First Officer's work is never done."

Winona shrugs helplessly, out of words. George leans forward and kisses her fervently one more time, then stands up and goes.

 

  
**   
_world was spherical_   
**   


At first Winona almost doesn't even recognize the heavy, needy, almost-itchy dull throb in her pulse and between her legs. The baby's weight and the increased blood flow have made her sore rather than sensitive, she hasn't wanted sex with George or even herself for weeks, and it actually surprises her to realize she's horny.

She's also sick of being pregnant, of the stupid unfocused contractions hitting randomly over the last thirty-six hours, of the way her hair looks now that her haircut is growing out, of just about everything except the stars and George. It's probably unfair to wake him up, she reflects, opening her eyes and looking across the bed at him asleep on his stomach, the covers fallen away from his broad back and the most perfect ass she's ever seen on anyone of any gender. But she really is horny, it seems.

Hauling herself up onto her hands and knees over her belly is almost not worth the effort, but Winona's blood is suddenly on fire. She nuzzles his ear, leaning her shoulder against the wall as she slides a hand up his thigh to press steadily behind his balls where she knows he likes it the most. "George," she whispers between licks, "George, honey, wake up and fuck your wife."

"Nnrfgh," George says into the pillow. Winona pushes in pulses, running her tongue along the shell of his ear, wondering if they have any lube left anywhere within reach. Maybe she can finger him awake. Pretty soon, though, George moans and lifts his head to blink blearily at her. "Why are you molesting me?"

"There's this thing called sex, married couples sometimes have it?" Winona pushes her hand down, and George may be whining, but he lifts his hips for her, he's nicely hard.

Besides, his brain starts to engage and his face brightens. "_Really_?" Smile unfurling, he rocks up onto his hands and knees. Winona can't hold on -- she's looking forward to being her lithe self again, she really is -- but she doesn't have to as George kisses her. He's sour with sleep but she is too and she really doesn't care, she hooks an arm around his neck and when he brushes his hand across her turgid breast it tingles and she moans.

One arm around Winona, George grabs the pillows with the other hand and piles them up, then eases her down onto the heap, facing the wall. "Mmm, Win," he murmurs as he kisses her back and shoulders and behind her ear where he knows it'll make her shake, "what brought this on?"

"I'm sick of being pregnant and my husband's really sexy?" Winona braces a hand against the wall. "Orgasms can trigger contractions."

"I thought you were already having contractions," George says, and now he sounds diffident.

"Random unproductive ones." Winona looks over her shoulder at him, curling her free hand invitingly. "I want them focused, and I want you to fuck me one more time before this baby arrives." Her face is half in the pillow, but she grins at George, and he grins back, pressing his hand to the wall right above hers, leaning over her carefully. She misses his weight on her, but it makes sense.

"Yes, ma'am," George says smartly as he curls his other hand around her hip, and pushes into her, blunt and hot and just what she wants. Her breasts ache against the pillow, her skin crackles all over, and she screams, maybe a little theatrically but she can feel George thinking in his measured thrust, in how quiet he is, and she wants him to stop. "Damn," he mutters, and the next thrust is harder, better, almost there.

"George, come _on_," Winona gasps, nearly as breathless as she sounds, reaching back to touch his face, "Please, more, please."

"Agh, Winona, don't beg," George moans, voice and body shaking. "Don't or I'll lose it."

"Then lose it," she says, pushing back into him. "I want you so much, I need you, I love you, please, George, fuck me, please..."

George whimpers, and Winona could cheer, except that she's too busy screaming for real as he moves perfectly harder. "Win, Win, oh my fucking God, Win," he moans in time with his thrusts, and she shouts encouragement back. She feels all the more sensitive now, full and swollen like an overripe fruit, every slam rippling through her, every word George says echoing into her too. "My Winona, Win, I love you, come on, love you," vibrates from his mouth on her nape, and Winona sobs, burying her face in the pillow as she comes in deep shudders, positively seismic.

"There we go, yeah, yeah," George murmurs, gripping her hip harder than he probably realizes, so hard she can feel each finger pressing into her skin. It almost hurts, but George has more than earned this. Winona pushes against the wall, groaning and shoving back into his thrusts until he shouts into her hair and comes too, locking his muscles and quivering.

Too soon, George sits back and collapses with a groan, and Winona slumps onto his outstretched arm, feeling the reverberations inside her body. Aftershocks gather and meet a whole other tensing wave, a real contraction, and she gasps. It hurts exactly how it should.

"Winona?' George asks, sounding a little worried.

When she can breathe she laughs. "There we go," she says, and "thank you," as she drags one of the pillows closer.

"Mmm, anytime. Hey, the baby didn't even wake up." George slumps onto his side, tucking the pillow under their heads, hugging her loosely with lax arms.

"Here's hoping the kiddo sleeps through all the sex we're going to have once I get my body back," Winona mumbles, and laughs a little to herself when George's answer is a light snore.

She dozes between contractions that are firmer and more regular, absently tracking their spacing as George sleeps behind her. Around oh-four hundred they've gotten too close to doze anymore, too strong to relax between, and Winona pushes herself over and wakes her husband up again, this time with a kiss on his cheek and a hand on his chest. "I think we should head to Sickbay," she says, watching him blink sleepily, then tense into action.

Some hours later, George is holding her hand when he's paged to the _Kelvin's_ bridge because of anomalous readings of a type no one's ever seen before. "Come back when you can," Winona says, and he kisses her quickly, his face anxious, his eyes blue-sky-bright.

"I love you, Win, you're doing great," George tells her, and she smiles vaguely, trying not to scream.

When that contraction passes he's still standing there, and she firms up her smile, beaming at him as bravely as she can. "I love you too, and the sooner you go the sooner you can get back here." A twinge makes her gasp and close her eyes; as George hurries away and the Sickbay personnel chatter around her, she thinks absently of his face, his blue eyes, the set of his chin, his nervous smile.

Later, she's grateful that she fixed his face in her mind.

 

  
**   
_find beyond the light_   
**   


_George_, Winona says, or maybe thinks, with his lips on her forehead and his hands on her waist and everything hazy and indistinct. _George_, because he's wonderfully heavy, pressing her down or maybe bearing her up, she's not sure of anything but the slow slide as their hips rock in counterpoint, that George is here with her, kissing her lovingly, every inch of him warm on her and in her.

_Winona,_ she hears, maybe, George's fingers pushing through her hair, stroking over her skin, salty-firm in her mouth as she sucks on them until George kisses her, gently, languidly, like they have all the time there ever was.

It's almost enough, almost, and she grasps him as tightly as she can, the smooth planes of his back beneath her hands, his muscled waist between her knees, his strength as she grips him, pushing towards him, wanting it just a little harder, a little faster. George doesn't want it like that, he kisses her, whispers to her, _slow down, slow,_ but there's a thread of urgency twisting in her mind, time is running out, her heart will explode if they don't finish and this will all be over so soon.

George relents, his mouth soft on hers, his fingers spread out firm and broad on her hips, a stronger push, a stroke where she needs it, and Winona doesn't know up from down but she's coming, clutching George with everything in her.

She can't hold him, her hands can't get purchase on his sweat-slick skin, he slips from between her knees, she can't feel him kissing her or inside her anymore. _I love you, I love you both so much_ echoes inside her head, and she can't sob or scream or cry out, she's alone.

She wakes up.

She wakes up to darkness and blessed silence, her Mom not snoring, neither boy crying. Her arms are folded tightly to her chest, she's curled up, almost fetal. Her thighs are damp, her skin clammy all over.

She can almost feel George beside her, almost, if she just holds still...

The mattress is only warm beneath her body; when she stretches out her legs, lets her arms unfold, takes a breath, all she feels is the bed chill and empty around her.

"Dammit, Winona," she mutters to herself, because she's not going to say, _dammit, George,_ and rolls facedown into her pillow as she starts to cry.


End file.
